L’écriture des traités de rhétorique des origines grecques à la Renaissance

Rhetorical treatises belong to technical literature, and are therefore often exclusively analysed in relation to their content. Although they focus on the resources of language, their composition also obeys specific rules. This volume accounts for the formal diversity of ancient Latin and Greek treatises and handbooks and explores the devices rhetoricians and literary critics resorted to when they commented on other texts or explained the techniques they taught. It follows a diachronic approach from the first rhetorical textbook known to us – the Rhetoric to Alexander – to Martianus Capella’s allegorical writing and also offers perspectives on neo-Latin poetics. The topics addressed by the contributors include genre, form and style, the contamination of discourse by the works cited and composition.